This blog is intended to provide the reader with important world news with an emphasis on Middle East and North Africa. It will publish news, analyses, comments, and opinions concerning those two regions. However, We welcome any comments, news or opinions which are related to their countries. You can visit too www.asswak-alarab.com for more information.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Why is Yemen’s presidential family loaded up with millions of
dollars in D.C. real estate?

By Ken Silvestein

Shortly
after being named one of the three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize this month,
Yemeni activist Tawakkul Karman said that if embattled President Ali Abdullah
Saleh is driven from power, investigators should immediately begin searching
for assets held abroad by members of his government. The money
"plundered" by the regime, she said, should be "brought back to
the Yemeni people," according to an account on an opposition website.

If
Saleh is forced out -- he has held power for more than three decades -- the
asset hunters might want to begin their search in Washington, D.C. Real estate
records show that in 2007 a man named Ahmed Ali Saleh bought four condominiums
in a luxury building in Friendship Heights, right near one of the capital's
swankiest shopping areas. He paid $5.5 million -- in cash -- for the condos. He
also owns a property assessed at about $220,000 in Fairfax, Virginia, bought in
the 1990s.

Saleh
is a common name in Yemen, and the Yemeni embassy in Washington won't comment
on the matter, but substantial evidence indicates that the Ahmed Ali Saleh who
owns the condos is the eldest son and longtime heir apparent of President
Saleh. He also heads the elite Republican Guard, which has allegedly led many
of the attacks on the country's largely peaceful protesters at Change Square in
Sanaa.

Yemen,
the poorest country in the Arab world, erupted in revolt against the Saleh
family's rule in February, soon after the fall of Tunisia's Ben Ali. Tribal
fighters, young pro-democracy activists, and government security forces have
been vying for control ever since. In recent days, the capital has been gripped
by violence. International human rights groups say the government has killed at
least several hundred demonstrators since the uprising began; some estimates
are many times that.

The
unrest in Yemen was triggered in part by anger over the ruling family's
self-enrichment, of which the military has been a prime beneficiary. (In
addition to the Republican Guard, President Saleh's close relatives control
other key branches of the military and security establishment.) Yemen is rapidly
running out of oil, which underpins the economy, and other resources, which
makes the situation all the more explosive.

In
Washington, at least some members of the president's family live in posh style.
Among the four condos owned by Ahmed Ali Saleh, the most expensive unit, which
he bought for $1.7 million, is currently up for rent (furnished) for $7,500 per
month. That's more or less equivalent to what a typical Yemeni makes in seven
years. The rental listing describes the 2,019-square-foot unit as "LUXURIOUS
and SPECTACULAR," with two bedrooms, walk-in closets, two-and-a-half baths
(one with whirlpool), hardwood floors, and marble and granite trimmings. The
listing also boasts of the building's 24-hour front desk and fitness center, as
well as its location "steps from ... [the] best shopping in DC."

Indeed,
Saleh's condos are just around the corner from Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus,
and a multitude of high-end retailers at Mazza Gallerie shopping mall on
Wisconsin Avenue. "So perfect, you'll want to move in immediately!"
says the listing.

Frank
Goldstein, who headed the building's condo owners' association until earlier
this year, said that young Yemenis "in their 20s" lived in the condo
units and that he was told by his designated contact at the Yemeni embassy that
they were cousins and nephews of the president who were attending universities
in Washington. Legal records show that Khaled Saleh, which is the name of
another son of President Saleh, was living in one of the condos in 2009. A
public record database search found that one of President Saleh's grandsons has
lived at Ahmed Ali Saleh's Fairfax property. Khaled Saleh and at least two
other relatives of the president are currently on the embassy's payroll,
according to a document filed by the Yemeni government with the U.S. State
Department. (Ahmed Ali Saleh himself lived in Washington in the mid-1990s and
graduated from American University, one U.S. source told me. The university
confirmed that an Ahmed A. Saleh graduated in the 1990s, but would provide no
other information.)

Several
people connected with the building, including Goldstein, told me that they
never met the condo's owner -- but that the Yemeni embassy in Washington was
the contact point when issues arose. When I called the concierge service at the
building and said I wanted to get in touch with Ahmed Ali Saleh, the person I
spoke with said, "He doesn't live here. If I need anything I call the
embassy [of Yemen], and they get someone for me. If you want anything to do
with those units, you have to go through the embassy."

Daphne
Coates, who manages the units for Legum & Norman Realty, told me:
"I've never met him [the owner] or talked to him. I don't know where he
lives, here or in Yemen. When I need something I call the embassy, and they
find someone for me to talk to."

Goldstein
said he was told by his contact at the embassy that one of the president's
brothers owned the units. Yet Mohammed al-Basha, a public affairs officer at
Yemen's Washington embassy, said the president has no brother named Ahmed Ali
Saleh or any relative of that name other than his eldest son. "I don't
have answers to your questions," he said when I later asked him directly
if the condo owner was the president's son. He suggested I contact the press
secretary for Ahmed Ali Saleh in Yemen, who failed to reply to an email seeking
comment.

I
called the Yemeni embassy on Monday, Oct. 17, and told the receptionist I
wanted to speak to the person at the embassy who handled Ahmed Ali Saleh's
condos. She put me through to a woman who became indignant when I told her I
was seeking confirmation that the president's son owned the units. "So
you're asking questions that don't pertain to you," she said. "What
business is it of yours who owns the property?" When pressed, the woman,
who wouldn't give her name but said she worked with the ambassador, said she
would get back to me on the question of ownership. So far she hasn't. When I
asked her how else I might confirm ownership, she replied, "Try contacting
the government of Yemen and see how far that gets you."

I
spoke on backgroundwith four U.S. experts on Yemen who have many decades of
combined government and private experience in the country and intricate
knowledge of the ruling family. They all said that given the evidence --
including the obvious wealth of the properties' owner -- the president's son
almost had to be the proprietor. One termed it "virtually impossible"
that he was not, adding, "It is inconceivable that there is another Ahmed
Ali Saleh in Yemen who has $5 million to buy condos in Washington." Another
said that during his conversations with Yemeni diplomats, several had mentioned
that the president's son owned property in Washington.

A
New York Times story last year said there was a sense in Yemen that the country
was run as "a family corporation." A 2005 State Department cable,
written by an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa and released this year by
WikiLeaks, made the case that "Rampant official corruption impedes foreign
investment, economic growth, and comprehensive development." The State
Department's most recent annual human rights report on Yemen says that
"officials frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity" and
that international observers "presumed that government officials and
parliamentarians benefited from insider arrangements and embezzlement."

"It's
a poor country, so there isn't a lot of money to steal, but because it's poor
it needs every dollar it can get," David Newton, who served as U.S.
ambassador to Yemen between 1994 and 1997, told me. "Corruption really hurts."

President
Barack Obama's administration -- which has been targeting suspected al Qaeda
militants operating in Yemen with drone strikes, including U.S.-born cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in late September -- has worked closely with
Saleh's government on counterterrorism matters but has spoken out against the
regime. During his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 21, Obama said
Yemenis calling for Saleh's ouster were seeking to "prevail over a corrupt
system" and that "America supports those aspirations."

The
State Department has asked for $35 million in foreign military financing for
the next fiscal year for Yemen. Total military, security, and economic aid to
the country has surpassed $100 million during the past two years, according to
a report by the Congressional Research Service.

Stephanie
Brancaforte, the Berlin-based campaign director for Avaaz, a global human
rights group that has worked extensively on Yemen and that alerted me to the
D.C. properties, criticized U.S. policy. "Saleh's forces have not only
killed protesters -- they have inflicted a humanitarian crackdown by
intentionally cutting off water and electricity to millions of people,"
she said. "The U.S. invested more than $100 million to fight terrorism in Yemen,
but that money has primarily gone to prop up a corrupt family.... Meanwhile,
the average Yemeni is less likely to be a victim of terrorism than
malnutrition."

Ahmed
Ali Saleh is one of the most powerful men in Yemen, and his father has long
groomed him to be his replacement (though the president recently promised that
his son would not succeed him). When President Saleh was evacuated to Saudi
Arabia in June after he was seriously burned in an attack on the mosque he was
attending, the younger Saleh moved into the presidential palace and took
charge. His troops have been directly implicated in some of the worst abuses
against protesters.

A
September 2005 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, released by WikiLeaks,
said the president was using the years leading up to a scheduled 2013 election
to "groom his son (a la Mubarak), make him increasingly visible, and place
him in positions of higher responsibility so that he will be seen as an
acceptable candidate." But the cable said that "there are considerable
doubts as to his [Ahmed Ali Saleh's] fitness for the job" and that he did
"not currently command the same respect as his father."

The
cable also called Ahmed Ali Saleh a force of "the status quo, [which] is
becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, given a declining economy, rising
frustration over official corruption, and increasing U.S. and international
pressures on the regime to change the way it does business."

Ahmed
Ali Saleh is certainly not the only controversial foreign official to have
bought real estate in the United States, but the transactions could attract
scrutiny if, for example, the funds used for the purchases could be shown to
have originated in corruption. Ahmed Ali Saleh clearly fits in the category of
"senior foreign political figures" as defined by the USA PATRIOT Act,
who are supposed to be subject to especially careful due diligence by American
financial institutions before accepting their money.

Jack
Blum, an attorney and former Senate counsel who played a key role in
investigations into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and the
Lockheed Corp.'s overseas bribery scandal, summarized the key questions
surrounding Ahmed Ali Saleh's condo-buying: "Was an American bank involved
at any point in the transactions, and if so, did it file a suspicious
activities report? If so, was anything done with it, or did it just make for
interesting wastepaper? Where did he get the money? Could he have afforded to
buy the properties on his official salary?"

Al-Basha,
at Yemen's Washington embassy, would not provide information on the salary of
President Saleh, his son, or other top government officials.

Meanwhile,
back in Yemen the uprising continues. President Saleh has repeatedly said he's
going to leave office -- only to back away at the last minute.

The
rental listing suggests that neither the president nor his eldest son plan on
retiring to Washington anytime soon, however. The property owner "will
consider long term lease," the listing says, so it looks as though Ahmed
Ali Saleh isn't ready to move in to his luxury condo just yet.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 18/10/2011
-Ken Silverstein is an Open Society fellow and contributing editor at Harper's
Magazine

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Influenced
by the upheaval that has stricken many Arab countries in the Middle East and
North Africa, the people of southwest Iran’s Khuzestan Province have tried to
start their own protest movement.Khuzestan is inhabited by a majority of Arabs and is home to more than
80% of Iran’s oil reserves. In the Arabic literature of the political and
cultural organizations of the province, the area is called al-Ahwaz. [1]

The
calls for an uprising in the province earlier this year tried to emulate the
April 2005 protests in Khuzestan, which were quelled by the use of violence by
Iranian authorities. The Iranian state media reported no news from the province
during the current protests but opposition sources claimed that the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards opened fire on the protesters and killed three people. It
was also reported that dozens were arrested (Alarab.net, April 18).

Although
the movement did not develop into anything like the uprising of 2005, it
attracted the attention of Iraqi Islamist insurgent groups. The Salafi-Jihadi
Ansar al-Islam (AI)group released a
communiqué named “Message of solidarity with our brothers in Ahwaz,” calling on
them to unify their efforts and launch a jihad against Iran (alboraq.info, May
11).Cooperation between the Iraqi insurgents and Ahwazi groups reportedly
started soon after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. During the 2005 uprising in
Khuzestan, the first agreement between activists from the province and Iraqi
insurgents became known and a series of bombs struck Iranian government
buildings and targets the following years (Islammemo.cc, June 12, 2005).

Arabs
in the province accuse successive Iranian governments of pursuing a policy
aimed at changing the demographic nature of the region by encouraging non-Arab
Iranians to migrate to the province in large numbers. They are also critical of
changes in the province’s borders that have seen southern areas with a majority
Arab population detached and areas with Arab minority populations added in the
north.

In
an interview with the Jamestown Foundation, the leader of the disbanded Hizb
al-Nahda al-Arabi al-Ahwazi (Ahwazi Arab Renaissance Party), Sabah al-Mossawi,
revealed that there were Ahwazi fighters who had joined the Iraqi insurgency:
“They went to fight the occupation [i.e. Coalition forces] but also to fight
the Iranian-backed parties. They mainly joined the Islamic Army in Iraq and the
Ba’ath party.”

Throughout
centuries of conflict between Iran and the Ottoman Empire, the Khuzestan region
managed to maintain a degree of relative independence, being ruled by a series
of local tribal leaders. The last of these was toppled by the Iranian
authorities in 1925 and the area came under the direct control of Tehran. After
the Islamic revolution of 1979, the community’s demands for more rights and
recognition of their distinct identity were not accepted by the new government.
Subsequently a large-scale uprising broke out in the province. The Iranian
authorities in turn repressed the protest movement ruthlessly and the area came
under military rule. Iraqi-backed organizations launched a series of attacks on
military and civilian targets during the uprising. The Ahwazi issue attracted
international attention when a group of Ahwazi gunmen belonging to the
Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRFLA) occupied
the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 and took hostages. After a six-day siege
of the embassy by police, the gunmen killed one hostage, leading to a
successful raid to release the hostages in the embassy by the British Special
Air Service (SAS), a Special Forces Regiment.

There
are various opposition groups which claim to represent the Arab population of
Khuzestan. All of them are banned in Iran but operate in exile while claiming
to have an active presence in the province. However the most prominent group
that claims to be militarily active is the Ba’athist Arab Struggle Movement to
Liberate Ahwaz (ASMLA) and its armed wing, the Martyr Mohye al-Din al-Nasir
Brigade (MMDNB). The latter’s strategy is to target oil production facilities
in the province as a means of weakening the Iranian economy, which depends
heavily on the oil of Khuzestan Province. In 2007 the MMDNB recognized Izzat
Ibrahim al-Douri as the new leader of the Iraqi Ba’ath party (Albasrah.net,
June 24, 2007)

The
majority of the people of Khuzestan are Sh’ia Muslims but there has been a
growing movement among them to convert to Sunni Islam. This trend has escalated
significantly over the last few years, driven mainly by a local identity
problem. Resentment of Iran by some Shi’a Ahwazis is reflected in a number or
ways, including a rejection of the Shi’a faith. None of the prominent Shi’a
clerics in Iran or Iraq have clearly supported the Ahwazi cause. The most
senior Ahwazi cleric and the most influential community leader, Shaykh Muhammad
Tahir al-Khaqani, was forced to leave Khuzestan after the uprising of 1979 and
put under house arrest in Qom until his death in 1986. No other local cleric
emerged to preserve the Shi’a-Arab nationalist identity of the population.

Salafi-Jihadi
groups from Iraq regard the conversions to Sunni Islam in Khuzestan-Ahwaz as
genuine and are encouraging the integration of Ahwazi converts in the
international jihadi movement. According to the AI communiqué: “The origin of
the people of Ahwaz is that they are a Sunni nation. The Iranian occupation has
imposed Persian and Shi’a culture on them. The policy of Persianization is
based on the Rafidah faith (i.e. Shi’a Islam). Therefore there should be a
clear distinction of the right faith (i.e. Sunni Islam). This distinction
should be the foundation to be relied on for achieving political and
geographical independence for the state of Ahwaz.” The AI message went on to
set a strategy for the confrontation in Khuzestan, calling for its people to
build a Sunni religious and political leadership: “There should be a unified
Sunni-Jihadi movement in Ahwaz and it should join the global jihad”
(Alboraq.info, May11).

The
AI communiqué is very important. It is picking up on a growing trend and trying
to direct it towards a jihadi goal. So far the revolutionary movements in
Khuzestan have been based on the community’s Arab identity within a Persian and
Shi’a Iran. With the increase of conversions to Sunni Islam among the
population, it is not possible to rule out that a base for a Salafi-Jihadi
organization could be established in the province. Such a development might
well change the relationship between Salafi-Jihadi groups and Iran. The former
have avoided a direct confrontation with Tehran so far, despite the often
severe confrontations between the Shi’a and Sunni communities in the Middle
East.Iraqi Sunni Islamists will be
heavily involved in such a struggle, putting the Salafi-Jihadists at the centre
of one of the most significant geo-political conflicts in the region.

Notes:

-This article was published in the Terrorism Monitor, Volume: 9,
Issue: 37, on 14/10/2011

1. Khuzestan was historically named Arabistan (the land of the
Arabs). In 1935 the Iranian government of Shah Reza Pahlavi renamed it
Khuzestani.e. “the Land of the Khuzis,”
referring to the ancient name used for sugar cane farmers in the ancient
kingdom of Susa
2-Local Arab people call the province al-Ahwaz and emphasize its history of
independence under Arab rulers since the Arab invasion of 639 C.E.Ahwaz is also the name of the Khuzestan
capital

About Me

I graduated from the French University in Beirut (St Joseph) specialising in Political and Economic Sciences. I started my working life in 1973 as a reporter and journalist for the pan-Arab magazine “Al-Hawadess” in Lebanon later becoming its Washington, D.C. correspondent. I subsequently moved to London in 1979 joining “Al-Majallah” magazine as its Deputy Managing Editor. In 1984 joined “Assayad” magazine in London initially as its Managing Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief. Following this, in 1990 I joined “Al-Wasat” magazine (part of the Dar-Al-Hayat Group) in London as a Managing Editor. In 2011 I became the Editor-In-Chief of Miraat el-Khaleej (Gulf Mirror). In July 2012 I became the Chairman of The Board of Asswak Al-Arab Publishing Ltd in UK and the Editor In Chief of its first Publication "Asswak Al-Arab" Magazine (Arab Markets Magazine) (www.asswak-alarab.com).

I have already authored five books. The first “The Tears of the Horizon” is a love story. The second “The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf” (1991) focuses on the first Gulf war sparked by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. His third book is entitled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration: The Complications and the Road to a Lasting Peace” (March 2008). The fourth book is titled “How Iran Plans to Fight America and Dominate the Middle East” (October 2008) And the fifth and the most recent is titled "JIHAD'S NEW HEARTLANDS: Why The West Has Failed To Contain Islamic Fundamentalism" (May 2011).

Furthermore, I wrote the memoirs of national security advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, Mr Robert McFarlane, serializing them in “Al-Wasat” magazine over 14 episodes in 1992.

Over the years, I have interviewed and met several world leaders such as American President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Margaret Thacher, Late King Hassan II of Morocco, Late King Hussein of Jordan,Tunisian President Zein El-Abedine Bin Ali, Lybian Leader Moammar Al-Quadhafi,President Amine Gemayel of Lebanon,late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, Haitian President Jean Claude Duvalier, Late United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan,Algerian President Shazli Bin Jdid, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Siyagha and more...